Sleep Apnea Reprieve--First Appeared in San Francisco Chronicle

            I sat in the waiting room, nervously thumbing through a magazine from the pile on the table next to me.  After a while a door leading to the examining rooms opened and a man came out.  I stopped him as he hurried toward the exit.

“Did you have the throat procedure for Sleep Apnea?” I asked.

“I had the procedure,” he replied, “but not for Apnea.  I snore so much that my wife banished me to the far side of the house.  This deal should fix the problem.”  He seemed happy about the whole thing and almost skipped out to the corridor.  I was somewhat reassured.

As I walked back to my fate, I wished that I had never mentioned fatigue to my internist.  She was the one who, months before, had ordered a sleep study.  I had to go to one of those places where you arrive in your pajamas and climb into a strange bed where the technician attaches wires to your head, neck, chest, abdomen, one finger, and a leg.  The results of my test showed that I snored and had sleep apnea.  This meant that I frequently stopped breathing, a practice not to be recommended.

The sleep specialists prescribed the nighttime use of a machine that sends forced air through tubes into your nose and opens passages in your throat to maintain respiration.  I tried hard to like the new appliance that traveled with me wherever I went, even off and on airplanes in the forests of Costa Rica.  I truly gave it every chance, but I could not manage it.  If I happened to fall asleep, I would awaken an hour or two later and just lie there.  It dawned on me that I slept far better without the machine, even if I did stop breathing.  My internist said I fell into the thirty percent of patients who could not use it.  It was time to see a throat specialist.

This physician told me about a relatively new treatment that seems to take care of snoring and mild to moderate apnea in eighty percent of patients.  He explained that three small synthetic rods are inserted with a special instrument into the soft palate where it joins the hard palate.  These rods make the tissue rigid and permit the passage of air, similar to the action of a baton in a sail to avoid luffing.  He asked me how old I was, then hid his shock and said politely that age didn’t matter, because I was in good health.

The procedure was not too unpleasant.  The doctor injected novocain into my throat so that I would feel nothing when he shot the little rods into place.  Everything went exactly as he had predicted, including the mild sore throat that would persist for a few days.

My little operation took place ten days ago, but I do not know if I still snore or if I am breathing continuously.  One of my younger friends gave me a nudge and suggested that I have an overnight guest to find out.  I’m not quite sure what she meant, but I reminded her that I am a senior lady and that she should respect her elders.

This is a developing story.

From Alsace to Woodside--First Appeared in the Country Almanac

In 1911, twenty-three year old Antoine Zaepffel left Dambach Laville for England to be with friends, but after a short visit, he stowed away on a ship bound for America.  When hunger drove him from his hiding place, he shoveled coal for the remainder of the voyage in return for food.  In New York City, Tony, the name Antoine came to be known by in America, took what work he could find, including the position of waiter at the Four Hundred Club. On a good night he earned $l.50 in tips, and kept forever the one dime thrifty John D. Rockefeller gave him.

Although the west beckoned, once again Tony had no funds for travel.  He made his way to Canada hoping to find work on the railroad.  No jobs were available, but he was allowed to ride the train in exchange for selling candy and snacks as a “peanut butcher.”  After a year in Alaska checking out the end of the gold rush, he finally arrived in San Francisco.

The Alsacian community welcomed Tony, and eventually   friends introduced him to their sister Elise.  Not long in the United States Elise had worked briefly as the French governess to the children of Franklin and Eleanor  Roosevelt.  She found the position difficult and soon left to join her brothers in San Francisco.  Tony and Elise were married, went to Virginia City, where the first of their five children was born, and opened a bakery.  Back in the Bay Area, Tony worked in a pawnshop and again as a waiter.

Tony’s first entrepreneurial attempt came as he opened an ice business in Redwood City.  When a large ice supplier refused to sell to him, he wisely approached a farmers’ co-op in the Santa Clara Valley who made their own ice.  To secure their assistance he borrowed money to install better equipment and soon had 15 delivery trucks from Menlo Park to Burlingame.  After a few years, he sold out his entire business to his large competitor with the exception of the route in Woodside, a town whose beauty reminded him of Alsace Lorraine.

The Zaepffels rented a home in Woodside on Tripp Road and bought property in the vicinity of Whiskey Hill.  An old barn was torn down and a small store moved to a better location.  Tony developed the property and added a gas station and an ice house.

He hired an assistant, and the older children worked after school and on weekends.  Tony drove the ice truck and called on homes all over Woodside, including ours.  No matter how busy his day, he always made time to sit down for a visit.  When Grandmother took out her purse to pay for the ice, Tony made change from a graying sack of coins fastened with a rubber band.  Before he left, he gave us children a sliver of ice to suck and then showed us how he could whistle through his fingers.

When Tony called on neighbor George Whittel, Mr. Whittel would sometimes pour out schnapps for the two of them.  On one occasion the Whittel’s pet lion took a swipe at Tony, but thanks to his protective leather vest, he was unharmed.  The Zaepffels rememberd seeing Mr. Whittel’s Deusenberg parked in front of the Pioneer Saloon, its owner inside the building as the lion waited in the car, tearing out the upholstery.

My mother often bought the wonderful thistle honey Tony obtained in Los Molinos, near Red Bluff.  In order to travel so far and back in one day, Tony had to leave very early, and he took son Alexis with him.  Alexis remembers being frightened to death on one occasion when Peninsula police pulled them over to examine the contents of the truck.  Alexis was quite relieved when his father showed the jars to contain honey and not the Prohibition contraband the police suspected.

Tony took the whole family to Europe in 1929.  He did not find it necessary to inform his wife until a day or two before departure.  Elise had to scramble to get clothes ready for a family of seven.  On the other end, relatives in Alsace Lorraine were equally surprised to find the large family on their doorstep.  Around home, Tony would occasionally take his brood for drives in a big old touring car complete with jump seats and crystal flower containers.  In the mid thirties, Tony once more surprised the family by moving them from their Woodside cottage to a large home in San Carlos.  I remember visiting there as a child and being amazed at the impressive mansion, its beautiful ceilings hand-painted by a European artist.  It also had two full kitchens.

Tony was a clever, hard working businessman who enjoyed his life and his customers.  He could do all manner of mental arithmetic and at a glance could correctly estimate the board feet in a pile of lumber.  His gas station was the first in Woodside, and later he was to install the first computing gas pumps.  He recounted proudly selling gas to President Herbert Hoover.

The time came to slow down, however, and in 1943 he sold the business to the Holts and bought a ranch in Lake County.  Elise refused to give up the San Carlos home, so they traveled back and forth often. 

Through intelligence and endless effort, Antoine Zaepffel came to a new homeland, reared a fine family, and founded a successful business.  He also enjoyed his life as Tony the Iceman.

Belated Motherhood--First Appeared in the San Francisco Examiner

      Gertrude was not my cup of tea, but she was lonely and a fellow writer.

      And adhesive. 

If you’d allow it, she would attach herself and never let go.  I made duty calls as infrequently as possible.

One afternoon, more than a year before she died, she stared at me over the top of her glasses.

“I’ve decided to tell you something.”

I nodded and wondered how soon I could escape.

“I had a child out of wedlock.”

I hid my surprise as she told the story -- although I couldn’t imagine why she would want to at this late date.

“I was 16 years old, living at home.  And because I was overweight, no one seemed to notice the change in my waistline.  My mother kept making me larger clothes but said nothing.

“I was in my room one evening when the baby was born. My parents came in and Father asked if I wanted to marry Tom.

“I said no, and that very night my daughter went to a childless couple in our community.  My (younger) sister never even knew about it.”

I was flabbergasted.

“Did you see your daughter again?”

“We moved to Florida soon after, but I had a good friend who kept tabs on her for me,” the old woman said.  “A couple of months ago she wrote that both adoptive parents were dead.  I felt that I could now make contact.  I got up my courage and made the call.

“My daughter answered the telephone.  I asked if she was aware of her adoption, and she said ‘yes.’  I told her that I was in a position to put her in touch with her mother should she wish it.

“There was along pause. Then she asked in a quiet voice, ‘Are you my mother?’

“I swallowed hard, trying not to cry, and said ‘yes.’”

The daughter was by now 63 years old.

“What took you so long?” she asked, and I could hear the tears in her voice.”

As the months went by, the saga continued.  It made visiting Gert a lot more interesting.  Mother and daughter –- one 80 years old, the other 64 -– began telephoning each other and became friends of sorts.

Gertrude had been a teacher of creative writing.  Oddly, so had her daughter.

After a year of calls and letters, the daughter asked if she might travel west to see her.

I happened to drop by that afternoon and found Gert in a quandary.

I asked, “Don’t you want to meet her?”

“Of course,” she said. “But then I’ll have to tell my son about her.”

She eventually told her son.  The daughter finally arrived.

The visit was not a success.  She supposed her daughter was nice enough, But Gert wasn’t jumping up and down. 

Gert at long last told her younger sister about the existence of the daughter.  The sister, who had two unmarried children living with partners, was furious.  She said that Gert had done a terrible thing six decades ago to their parents.

But Gert said that what really miffed her sister was being left out of the secret all those years.

On the other hand, Gert’s son and his new sister hit it off.

After she returned to her life in the Midwest, the daughter would call her elderly birth mother occasionally, but Gert suspected that her daughter and her son were talking more often.

She was jealous.

Costumes for Everyone--Even Bears

     Costumes are fun, especially at Halloween.  When we were children, I remember lengthy discussions about what we were going to be that year.  I don’t know why we bothered.  In our house, we were always clowns.  Because there were four of us, Mother kept recycling the same costumes.

     I have always liked to dress up---at any time. I recall suggesting to my own little family that we acquire bear costumes for our summer trips to the Sierras.  Other motorists might have enjoyed seeing a car move down the highway with Daddy and Mama Bear in the front seat, their cubs in the back.

     We have a friend, George, who has never gotten over the pleasure of make-believe.  For any occasion, and especially for Halloween, he dons costumes to amuse the children in his family.  Over the years he has been many things—Miss Piggy, a bee, a lion, a striking viking, Energizer Bunny, a turkey.  Even a broken building after that terrible earthquake.  His favorite is a gorilla suit which he once wore crossing the Bay Bridge.  The toll-taker feigned boredom.

     George recently visited friends at Tahoe who were still gasping over an uninvited visitor who had just left.  The host said that he had looked across the table at his two small grandchildren and saw their eyes open wide.  He followed the direction of their gaze.  There in the kitchen was a bear, standing on his hind legs and dipping into the bowl of fruit which the family was to have for dessert.

     His heart almost stopped, but a moment later he remembered.  George was due to arrive at about that time and had undoubtedly decided to give the children a pre-Halloween surprise.  But then the bear dropped to all fours and turned in his direction.  It was not George.

     As calmly as he could, he whispered to the children to go upstairs and stay there.  For once, they obeyed.

     He quietly approached the bear and motioned to it to leave.  The bear obliged and retraced its steps down the hallway and out the front door.  When the host slammed the door, the bear must have realized it had been hoodwinked.  With delicious odors wafting from the kitchen, it banged and pounded on the door, then tore off the outside screen.  It walked around the house, hitting windows, but it fortunately was unable to operate the sliding glass doors.  After pacing back and forth on the porch, it sat on a chaise to wait the human inhabitants out.

     Everyone was shaken by the experience.  The forest rangers came and baited a trap for what they considered to be a friendly bear, the most dangerous of all.

     If our friend George had chosen that day to amuse the children, I wonder what that bear would have thought to enter a house and see a gorilla or Miss Piggy sitting at the table.  I also wonder what George will be this Halloween.

Angels that I Met on High (First Appeared in the Contra Costa Times)

     I was on my way to heaven when I met three angels.  They may have saved my life.  They certainly saved my car.

     My son and his wife live high in the hills above a San Francisco Peninsula valley.  Their home is on a rocky knoll where they can almost reach out and touch the clouds.  On a clear day, they can see five bridges.

     It’s a long trek up the mountain, and there are two ways to do it.  One route goes forever past meadows and through canyons, then residential areas, and the road is good.  If you stay alert and watch the road signs, your chances of making it are excellent.

     The other road also climbs interminably but is far more difficult to navigate.  It is substantially a single lane thoroughfare upon which a complicated negotiation ensues if you meet a car coming the other way.  On one side of the road, banks rise steeply.  On the other, the roadside drops abruptly to a meandering creek that becomes a rushing stream in winter.  This road, however, is far more beautiful, hence a more interesting journey.

     All the rain of this winter reminds me of a perilous journey I took on this road some time back when it was plagued with slides.  On the way to visit my family, I made a last minute disastrous decision to opt for beauty.  A big mistake.  The gate across the narrow road was latched back, so naturally I thought the way ahead was clear.

     Shortly after I began the climb, I could see that the road was being repaired. Tractors and earthmovers were parked along the roadside, which made moot any thought of turning around.  My only choice was to proceed.  The high banks on my left were being scraped and sprayed to prevent new slides, and the movement of repair equipment had torn up the surface of the roadbed.  Recent rains had deposited mud at the base of the high banks and spattered it across the pavement.

     I knew I was in trouble as the reconstruction continued, and the road worsened and narrowed.  All I could do was go on.  By this time, I was becoming frightened, and the way had never seemed so long.  On and on I went, endlessly upward, until finally the last gate loomed ahead, a beacon marking the end of my ordeal.

     I put on the brake, got out of my car and approached the gate.  A chain and padlock secured the portal—an appalling betrayal on the part of the company doing the repairs.  And there I was, at the top of a torn-up narrow road with mud on one side and the sloping creek bank on the other.  For some reason, my cell phone would not work.

     All I could do was to start backing down the several twisting miles I had just painfully traversed.  It was almost impossible to make much progress with my foot on the brake as I tried to stay on the road.  About fifteen minutes and one-quarter mile later, I saw a car coming up behind me.

     I got out and explained our predicament to the three women inside.  Together we decided that there was a slight chance of turning a little farther down, and I begged them not to go off and leave me alone.  After many back and forth maneuvers they finally succeeded in pointing their compact downhill.  Then it was my turn.

     Those three angels stationed themselves around my car and literally inched me around.  I could never have made it without them.  Shaking with relief, I got out of my car to thank them.

     They nodded, but no one smiled.  Then one of them said quietly, “I knew there was a reason we drove up here today.”

Cruising Down the River

     Our cruise ship was a great place for character study, and there were a few characters on board the ship.  Never mind that those people were forming similar opinions of us.

     Three of our family were on a Swiss river boat cruising from Budapest to Amsterdam, the culmination of months of planing that our family group would sail those rivers and canals and see the sights along the way.

     Our first impression of our fellow passengers was one of incredible senility and that everyone else was far older than we.  As we met them, people began to grow younger, and by the end of the cruise they seemed positively juvenile.

     Almost everyone had a story, some more interesting than others.  As the days passed, we heard many of them, and those we didn’t hear, someone in our party had.  The ones I liked most were the romances. 

Several honeymooning couples were aboard.  One pair found each other after marriages of almost half a century were over.  It was wonderful to see their quiet pleasure in each other. 

     Another couple of newly-weds told of their recent wedding.  They described the ceremony in which their combined seventeen grandchildren preceded them down the aisle, the little boys in navy blazers and the girls in matching flowered dresses.

     One somewhat younger couple seemed happy enough together, but the lady confided that if she had it to do over again, she wouldn’t.  His three teenage daughters made her life a misery, and she would forego the pleasure of his company to dispense with theirs.

     One attractive lady with a highly developed southern accent chewed gum and displayed an inordinate amount of cleavage.  This love of decolletage extended to sweaters, tee shirts, and dresses.  Her husband, a retired pilot, liked to talk about his landings.  It interested us the first time, but after that the subject paled. 

     We observed the unusual friendship of two older ladies.  One had a bad ankle and was somewhat physically dependent upon the other.  The second woman, ever solicitous, complained bitterly whenever she could escape.  She had bought her own ticket, but the first one treated her like a paid companion—-expecting her to fetch and carry on command.  In the cabin they shared, the old curmudgeon would not allow the doormat to turn on the lights and refused to share even one of her three clocks with the poor slave who had forgotten hers.

     Then we had the Texan and the Trophy.  He was a balding, middle-aged man given to wearing ten-gallon hats.  She looked twenty years younger, thanks to a superb facelift and a great hair job.  She liked form-fitting garments and bought a new sweater at every port—-purchases much appreciated by male passengers.

     We all avoided Jack the Rapper.  He talked incessantly and woe unto the one whose attention he captured.  He ranted on, hands waving in air as the unfortunate listener suffered.  We were surprised to learn that he was a psychiatrist.  His patients must have found their sessions unhelpful as he did the talking and they sat and listened.

     Few people smoked, but one section of the bar was reserved for those who did.  One of the most unlikely devotees was a dear white-haired lady who, as she sipped a martini, liked to tell about her childhood on the farm and her horse named Dick.

     Sightseeing often curtailed shopping time, much to the chagrin of many of the ladies on board.  The average male passenger preferred to find a sidewalk café to enjoy the native brew.  One husband could not elude his wife and sat forlornly in a front corner of the store while his bride made her purchases.  He looked at us sadly and pleaded, “Please buy me and take me out of here.” 

     The crew afforded us an opportunity to speculate.  Every woman on board admired the handsome young captain and wanted to take him home for a spinster daughter.  Some of the ladies thought he and the cruise director would make a pair.  Their husbands did not find that a subject of interest.

     The sightseeing was spectacular along the way.  Wonderfully preserved walled cities of medieval days with Disneyesque moated castles vied in fascination with storybook towns often photographed and painted for Christmas card scenes.  Guides pointed out ruins and spewed forth more history than we could absorb.  They took us to cathedrals dating back to the tenth century and threw about dates of events even older.

     Jet-lagged and weary, we arrived home to a mountain of accumulated letters, bills, magazines, and junk mail.  Our clothes were dirty, the refrigerator was empty, and the garden cried for attention.  Within a day or two we were restored enough to think back on our trip and all we had seen.  We also smiled at the memory of our fellow passengers.

The Gift Horse Had Cavities

At a recent charity event, my neighbor Lynn won THE primary door prize: A weekend at a cabin in the Sierras, and I was one of three friends she invited to go along.

We could hardly wait for the date to roll around.  We’re all pals and relished the thought of being together for three whole days.  We planned to hike and swim and just loll and read in the comfort of our alpine retreat.

Lynn got the key from the generous owner, a San Francisco businesswoman who described the cabin as rustic.   She told us how to operate the burglar alarm and gave directions on how to get there. 

After a three-hour drive we found the house and saw what we had expected.  A mountain cabin in the pines with an inviting porch.  The inside was another story.  It was a disaster.  One look and we wondered how we could last through a whole weekend.  My first impression was that we had arrived at the home of the Addams family and that Morticia would appear any minute.  Or maybe Lurch.

We had thought it would be an old cabin with tired furniture, but a dirty old cabin was not in our plans.  Cobwebs festooned walls and ceilings, some with hard-working spiders spinning away inside.  King-sized ants marched around the bathroom and few reacted to the insect repellent we sprayed on them.  The bathroom fixtures were rusted, the mirrors mottled.  Tattered draperies hung unevenly from occasional hooks in the living room.

To judge by the stuff that crowded every shelf, corner, and closet, the cabin had been in the owner’s family for generations.  It looked as though anyone who had anything he didn’t want drove it to the mountains to molder and die. 

We took our own sheets, so we were sure of that much.  The blankets, however, emitted clouds of dust as we made the beds.  As a matter of fact there was an inch of dust on everything.

It was hard to understand how anyone could donate the use of her home and not clean it up--a little anyway.  We decided that the owner wanted to appear generous at the charitable event and didn’t care about the comfort of his guests.

It never dawned on us to go to a motel.  We liked the idea of making our own breakfast coffee and lunchtime sandwiches, after scouring the counters, of course.  Good restaurants within walking distance supplied our dinners.

We walked among the pines, lazed on the porch, visited friends, and inspected the shops.  Most of our cabin time was spent outside on the porch where we laughed and giggled over the bridge table and everything else.  I stopped laughing when the bridge scores were totaled and I owed the most money---$2.95.  This, of course, had no correlation to my skill.

When it was time to shake the dust from our things and go home, we searched out the cleaning equipment.  The only broom must have been a wedding gift to the owner’s grandmother.  We found it hard to sweep with only an inch or two of straw.  We folded the lint-filled blankets but left the spider webs for the next tenant’s pleasure.

I think we were all glad to leave, but I don’t know when we’d had more fun.  All anyone needs is good friends, good food, and a sense of humor.  Were you to ask if we would go back, at this moment I’d have to say, no, but then, maybe we would.